


Dead on Arrival

by ObscureReference



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game), Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Risen, Survival Horror, Suspense, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 07:32:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17483861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: “Shit,” Inigo whispered, catching the wires a millisecond before they slipped out of his sweaty fingers.Electricity thrummed between the wires; he had no doubt that had they touched it would have resulted in something very unpleasant. Whether that unpleasantness was an explosion or a simple spark remained to be seen. Inigo didn’t want to find out.The way his night had been going, it would probably be an explosion.On the bright side, an explosion would probably be an easier death than the fate that awaited him if he was caught by—whatever thatthinghad been.Inigo shuddered, hunching down lower.(Dead by Daylight fusion.)





	Dead on Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> *banging pots and pans together* I! Want! More! Horror! AUs!
> 
> And yet despite this, I'm not sure what type of plots they should have, lol. Which is why I'm lifting the setting here straight from Dead by Daylight. If you don't know it, it's basically an online survival horror game! There are four survivors per match and one killer. Obviously the killer hunts the survivors while the survivors go about their business--namely, trying to escape. If you're really curious, you can find more details on any Let's Play on YouTube or even just via Google! I'd rather not give away too many details here just in case. 
> 
> I'm a big fan of a ton of different horror games despite being too much of a coward to play any of them myself. I'd much prefer watching others. And I've been on a bit of a DbD kick lately. I definitely want to see more varying types of horror AUs for FE though! I wonder if I can think of anything else soon. Horror is a bit difficult, lol, despite being my preferred genre.
> 
> In any case, I hope you enjoy!

“Shit,” Inigo whispered, catching the wires a millisecond before they slipped out of his sweaty fingers.

Electricity thrummed between the wires; he had no doubt that had they touched it would have resulted in something very unpleasant. Whether that unpleasantness was an explosion or a simple spark remained to be seen. Inigo didn’t want to find out.

The way his night had been going, it would probably be an explosion.

On the bright side, an explosion would probably be an easier death than the fate that awaited him if he was caught by—whatever that _thing_ had been.

Inigo shuddered, hunching down lower.

He spared a risky glance to his right and eyed the rusty hook. It was an intimidatingly thick hook. It hung from some kind of metal structure that looked like it had been cobbled together from random beams and other assorted items. It didn’t look _stable_ , per say, but it did look dangerous. Various colors stained its surface. Inigo told himself it was all rust, but he _really_ didn’t want to get closer to find out.

The uncomfortably close hook was not unique; Inigo had spotted dozens of large hooks hanging from similarly haphazard structures. They looked like the perfect height to hang a dead animal.

Or a person.

He forcibly tore his eyes back to the confusing innards of the generator and tried not to think about it.

“Okay,” Inigo whispered, staring at the machinery. His voice was a pitiful comfort to his own ears. It was barely audible over the hum of the generator anyway. He decided not to risk talking out loud to himself again.

It was hard not to, though. He was scared and alone. A hook, an impassible wall, the generator, fields upon fields of dried corn in the distance—the scenery wasn’t exactly barren, but it was certainly devoid of life.

Poor choice of words. He shivered again and pressed his lips together, trying to keep a cap on his panic.

 _I can do this_ , he told himself. _I can do this._

He certainly could not do this.

But if he didn’t try, he was as good as dead.

Three out of four pistons churned on the generator, so Inigo figured he must have been doing _something_ right. He had no idea how. He’d been born a dancer, not a mechanic. One series of wires and bolts looked the same as the next.

But fortunately—despite what Inigo had been told again and again—he did have a brain in his head. And though it took a while to discover, Inigo had noticed the matching colors and shapes of some of the generator components. Some of the wire ports were encircled with a blue sticker, for example. So Inigo stuck a blue wire in there. He did the same for the red wires and ports. He stuck a hexagonal tube into the hexagonal opening. He tightened the loose nuts and bolts with his bare fingers, sucking air through his teeth when the metal pinched his skin.

Eventually, some of the pistons had started churning. And now Inigo was down to only a few obvious fixes left.

The only problem was the sound. The generator was just so _loud_. Every new component of the generator that sprang to life increased the noise just a little more. The closer to completion the generator came, the more often Inigo found himself looking over his shoulder rather than looking at what he was supposed to be doing.

Which was exactly when a wire slipped out of his grasp a second time.

Inigo hissed as it brushed passed several other bare wires, sparking. The generator sputtered loudly, spitting smoke into his face. The machine _popped._ It echoed. 

“ _Shit_ ,” he swore again. There was no way somebody hadn’t heard that.

Heart thudding increasingly loudly in his ears, he hastily shoved the last wire into what he hoped was the right port. His fingers shook. The final piston began to churn, and as though somebody had flipped a switch, the lights above the generator flickered on.

Inigo was suddenly bathed in light—a literal beacon in the midst of evil. The generator continued to roar.

Oh no.

The momentary euphoria he’d felt from actually fixing the generator was quickly swallowed by panic as he scrambled to his feet. Inigo dashed around a cluster of trees blindly, heartbeat pounding in his ears. He could hear nothing over the rush of his own blood. It didn’t matter where he ran so long as it was _away_.

Were those footsteps behind him or just his imagination? Panting, Inigo jerked his head over his shoulder to see but only saw a black blur that might have been a crow. He kept running.

He ran and ran until his heel caught some mud, and then Inigo slid. He hit the ground with a muffled grunt and rolled. When he came to a stop, he scrambled up on his hands and feet again, too dazed to properly stand. The only thing that stood out in his dizzy vision was a fallen long, and so Inigo hastily crawled behind that, pressing his stomach flat to the cold earth.

He slid an oil smudged hand over his mouth to stifle his heavy breathing, waiting for the inevitable.

Inigo shook.

Nothing happened.

His limbs absolutely refused to stop shaking, but eventually Inigo’s breathing evened out. His heartbeat faded from all-encompassing to manageable. His lungs did not stop aching, and the tips of his fingers still stung from where they had gotten pinched on the generator. But no monster had appeared from the other side of the wood to run him through with a ramshackle sword or hatchet or whatever that thing had held.

Inigo wasn’t dead.

And that had to mean something.

Fear kept him pinned to the ground, but it didn’t keep him entirely immobile. He sucked in a steadying breath and turned his head away from the log. Then he squinted.

There. A break in the brick.

A brick wall surrounded this hellscape farm, and even if Inigo could have climbed the wall without breaking a limb, the wrought iron spears that lined the top ensured he would not get over it unskewered. Inigo was pretty sure the wall went all the way around the farm, or wherever he was. As far as he could tell, at least. He’d yet to see any gaps in the brick.

Except for one. He’d seen one change.

It was a door.

For a split second Inigo thought the large metal gate he was staring at now was the same one he’d spotted earlier. Then he noted the bales of hay that sat to the left of the door, not the right, as well as a few other stray details that didn’t line up in his memory.

No, he realized. This was a different door. Which meant there were at least two of them.

There were at least two ways to escape this hellhole.

Suddenly emboldened with this new knowledge, Inigo pushed himself to his hands and knees as silently as he could. He steeled himself and peeked over the edge of the log, heart caught in his throat.

There was nobody there. Not a single blade of grass shifted.

He swallowed and pushed himself to his feet. Keeping low and taking his time, Inigo slowly crept over to the door.

It was a very large door. Even with the low level of fog constantly circling his feet, Inigo thought this was a door one could spot from quite a distance. The door—more of a gate, really—was large enough to allow two cars to pass through side by side at once, if they were very careful about it.

It was also controlled by a large lever on the wall next to it.

At least, Inigo assumed it was. He had pulled the lever once before on the other door and nothing had happened. That’s when he’d noticed the series of cables connecting the lever to something in the distance.

Inigo had tried to follow the cables before and quickly found that wouldn’t work. The cable lines were thick and heavy, but the farther away from the door he searched, the more the cables split into opposite directions. They also became increasingly obscured by dirt and corn and other things until they disappeared into the earth completely, too difficult to follow without a shovel and more time than Inigo could afford. He’d stumbled upon the generators by accident and put two-and-two together fairly quickly.

The last time Inigo had tried to pull the switch, nothing had happened. But this time a generator was on. So maybe…

He crept closer, wary of any sound that wasn’t his own. Dirt crunched near silently under his feet. The lever was within reach.

Inigo wrapped his fingers around the cold metal and pulled down. The lever moved smoothly. Hope swelled in his chest.

Nothing happened.

No grinding gears, no hum of electricity, no indication anything was happening at all. Nothing. The large metal door remained shut.

Inigo stifled a whimper as anxious tears welled up in his eyes. He hastily scrubbed them away with the back of his hand. Every inch of him wanted to cry, but he knew he couldn’t afford it here. He had to keep his hopes up. He was still alone.

“That won’t work.”

Or not.

Inigo yelped and spun around. His back scraped against the brick wall. He nearly took off into the fog again before he spotted the dark, distinctly _human_ shape crouching against one of the bales of hay.

The figure scowled. It was a large, unfriendly looking man. He did not at all look like the type of person Inigo ever wanted to associate with in his daily life, but he was a _human_ and he was speaking actual _words_ and he wasn’t trying to actively stab Inigo, so that alone nearly made Inigo burst into tears for a second time.

The man noticed. His scowl deepened. “Tch. Pull yourself together. And either get over here or beat it before you get caught standing there like a chicken with your head cut off.”

Inigo’s heart squeezed uncomfortably at the chicken imagery.

But still. A person.

“R-Right,” he said, crouching again. They both kept their voices low as he made his way toward the bale of hay the man was hiding behind. “You tried the door before?”

“What do you think?” the man said, sounding as though he thought Inigo was an idiot. “It’s a giant door. There might as well be a sign on it that says ‘Use me to escape, morons.’”

Inigo frowned at the man’s tone, then hastily wiped it away. No use getting worked up over a little rudeness when there were bigger problems going on. Besides, Inigo could relate.

“I tried it before too,” he said. He finally reached the hay, and Inigo crouched in the dark with the man. He hoped they were hidden. “But I turned one of those generators on a few minutes ago, so I thought this time might be different. Guess we probably need more than one though, huh?”

He made sure to smile despite not feeling very cheerful at the moment and stuck out his hand. “I’m Inigo, by the way.”

The man gave him an appraising glance. He did not take Inigo’s hand, so Inigo awkwardly let it fall.

“Hans,” the man finally answered. Hans jerked his head into the distance. “You really started one of those generators?”

“Yeah,” Inigo said. Hans looked slightly impressed. “Just the one, though. I assume the others have to be on before it’s enough to actually power the door.”

He eyed the door again, wishing it was as old and decrepit as everything else in the area. But if that were true, the door might not have budged at all, and so Inigo hastily shoved that wish aside.

“Decent thought,” Hans said, a bit reluctant. “I’ll have to try my had at it if I see another one then.”

A sliver of courage filled Inigo.

“We could go together,” he suggested quickly. “Safety in numbers, right?”

Hans snorted. “Hell no. Do I look like an idiot to you? I’m not picking a bigger target on my back than I have to. Thanks for the generator idea, but you can run along now, runt. I’m making it out of this mess without any dead weight hanging around.”

Inigo stared, mouth agape, as Hans began to creep away.

“Are you serious?” he whispered as loudly as he dared. Hans’s outline darkened with every step he took. Inigo’s sliver of courage went with him. “We’re stuck in a—a _hell farm_ , and you want to go around by yourself? I don’t think that’s the best idea, friend!”

Hans sneered. “I’m not your _friend_.”

With that, he turned away. Too in shock to protest any longer, Inigo let him go. Even in the midst of hell, he wasn’t going to fight for the partnership of somebody who didn’t want him. Nor was he going to risk making any more sound than absolutely necessary. They had already lingered for long enough.

To find there were actual people aside from himself trapped here and to be spurned by said person in the same breath—the whiplash made Inigo’s head spin.

His chest ached some more. He didn’t want to be alone.

But, he told himself, if Hans was here, then maybe others would be too. People who would want Inigo’s help. People who could work together to survive this mess. Maybe even people he knew.

Inigo’s stomach sank at the thought. He had to keep moving.

Regretfully, he left the escape door behind him. A sea of trees and corn was laid out before him, but Inigo was still careful to move in the opposite direction of where Hans had gone. He hugged the outer wall.

In the center of the field, just close enough so Inigo didn’t have to squint, sat a two-story dilapidated house. Its doors were missing. The glass in the windows was gone. The wood was rotted, and it was practically empty inside. The entire building looked like it had been abandoned for decades. Inigo hadn’t been back to it since he’d woken up there.

Since the creature had chased him out of it.

A chill shot down his spine at the memory. He kept moving.

He froze every time a twig snapped underfoot, and he tucked himself against the lone walls that broke up the landscape of dying vegetation every few yards.

Why were there so many walls, he wondered. They were only a few feet wide and perhaps just as tall. The wooden walls were often clustered together like some kind of shack or other small building _used_ to stand there, but if that were true, the floor and connective tissue of said shacks were long gone. They were only a few tangential constructions now.

In any case, the walls broke up the landscape and made it easier for Inigo to hide, even if there were gaps between every board that built them. He made note of the window-sized holes in the brick that he could leap through if the time came. About half of the lone walls had them. He hoped he’d never have to use them.

The moon hung full and sickly overhead. Inigo had no idea how long he’d been creeping there in the dark with a half-baked plan before the snap of a twig caught his ears. He froze again, tucking himself into some long grass. One of the strange, lone walls was pressed against his side. To his right, the outer brick wall keeping him trapped in this nightmare mocked him.

Inigo’s ears strained.

Was there someone out there? Hans? Or something worse?

He hunched closer to the cold brick and pressed his lips shut, willing himself as still as a statue.

Had he simply imagined it? No, he’d definitely heard _something_. Hadn’t he?

If it was Hans again—or someone else, someone Inigo _knew_ or who needed his help—was he making a mistake by hiding from them?

What if it wasn’t a person at all?

The blanket of fear laying on Inigo's shoulders settled in like an unshakable shroud.

His heartbeat once again began to roar in his ears, anxiety eating away at his blood. His thoughts swirled in an awful back and forth. After a terrible moment of indecision, he shifted his weight ever so slightly and leaned up just enough to raise his eyes above the glassless window.

There, not ten yards away from where he was hiding, stood the creature from the house. Miraculously, it hadn’t seemed to have noticed him. Its back was turned.

An almost silent breath of surprise left Inigo’s parted lips.

The creature whirled to face the source of the noise; Inigo shot back down out of sight before it was finished turning, but its horrific features were painted on the back of his eyelids like a permanent tattoo.

It looked like a mockery of a person. Its sagging shoulders and limp arms did nothing to detract from its hulking stature, nor the menacing weapon in its grasp. Some kind of oversized butcher’s knife? He didn’t know. All Inigo knew was that it wasn’t friendly, its skin was gray, and he in no way wanted to ever see what was under the dirty sack it wore over its face.

No. More importantly, he knew _it was headed right towards him._

Stay? Or run? Inigo didn’t have the time for a mental debate, yet he was frozen with indecision anyway.

What if it hadn’t seen him? What if he ran and it caught him? What if he stayed and the darkness did nothing to protect him? _What if?_

The creature took a loud step in Inigo’s direction. Then another.

Inigo stayed crouched behind his little wall, balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to run the moment the creature stepped too close. Sweat dripped down the back of his neck.

He heard it step even closer now. It breathed in and out raggedly. Inigo imagined how rancid and rotted its breath must be, pressing his lips together even more tightly at the thought.

Then, suddenly, there was a small explosion in the distance. Inigo didn’t turn, didn’t dare peak out of hid hiding place to spot the source of the noise, but a breath of surprise left his lips once again. Thankfully the mechanical pop of a machine—a generator?—seemed to drown him out.

Just as quickly, there was silence.

Both Inigo and the monster paused.

Somehow, without looking, Inigo knew the creature was right on the other side of his wall. All he had to do was look up and he would see it through the window.

The real question was if the monster had seen _him_.

The undead thing moaned. The sound was very close to a gurgle.

There was another footstep. Then another.

It was walking away from Inigo’s hiding spot.

Probably toward whatever had made that sound, Inigo realized. He thought of Hans and the generators. Though Hans had been a rather unfriendly man, Inigo in no way wished him dead. He sent a quick prayer to whatever gods were listening and hoped they all escaped unscathed, listening to the creature’s footsteps intently all the while. He didn’t allow himself to relax until the footsteps faded entirely.

When they did, Inigo shot up and out of his meager hiding spot. He looked over his shoulder as he ran, mind racing. A second generator light had turned on in the distance. The monster was behind him now, presumably off to investigate the new light, but for how long? He couldn’t just run around hiding forever. That plan wouldn’t last long. His only hope was to find another generator. With enough of them, maybe he could—

Foolishly, so concerned about the monster behind him, he forgot to pay attention to what was in front of him too.

A hand wrapped around Inigo’s bicep tightly, yanking him to a halt. He stumbled backwards, balance suddenly lost. The heat of having another living creature so close burned at Inigo’s skin.

He began to scream, but a hand slammed over his mouth before any sound could be released. Strong arms pulled Inigo’s back to an equally solid chest. Inigo flailed.

He rammed his elbow back and caught somebody in the ribs. A deep voice hissed in pain into Inigo’s ear.

“ _Stop_ ,” the voice whispered harshly. “Inigo, calm down.”

Instantly, Inigo did. He would have recognized that voice anywhere.

As soon as he was sure Inigo wasn’t going to fight some more, Xander let him go. Inigo whirled to face him.

“Oh my gods,” Inigo gasped. “Are you alright? Did it get you?”

The moonlight was all they had to see by, but thankfully it was enough. Inigo moved back just enough to look Xander up and down. A cursory glance told him that Xander looked quite ruffled but otherwise untouched, thank goodness.

When Inigo looked back up, he found Xander scanning him in much the same way.

“I’m fine,” Xander answered after a beat. His hands rested heavily on Ingo’s shoulders. “Here, get down. We’re too big of a target.”

He was right. Inigo followed his lead and slid down behind some trees. His thighs were beginning to burn from all this crouching and hiding, but he tried not to think about it.

Xander was broad all over, and Inigo couldn’t be certain a portion of his shoulders didn’t poke out past the tree trunk. He was too entranced by the miracle of knowing Xander was alive to mention it just yet, however.

“Are _you_ hurt?” Xander asked. His hands were still on Inigo’s shoulders, but he lifted one to caress Inigo’s cheek lovingly. His fingers brushed the tips of Inigo’s hair.

When Inigo shook his head, Xander let out a relieved sigh. “Good. What in the world is going on around here?”

He looked over his shoulder to make sure they were safe. Inigo was practically vibrating out of his skin, and no amount of warmth from Xander’s skin could steady him.

“I think the generators are our ticket out of here,” he blurted. “We need to get them running again. But they make a lot of noise, and it’s hard to fix them quietly with that _thing_ running around. Have you seen it?”

Xander had turned back to Inigo by this point, frowning.

“No,” he said, brow furrowed. “But I ran into someone else. They warned me it wasn’t safe and to hide myself if I could, so I have been. But I’m not sure _who_ I’m hiding from.”

Someone else. Hans? Or a fourth person? How many of them were there?

Inigo would figure that out in a moment. He needed to warn Xander first.

Though Xander and the monster were more or less the same height, Inigo didn’t want to see who would win in a fight. Not without a weapon, at least. If the two never met at all, that was a weight off Inigo’s mind altogether.

“It’s not a person,” he said urgently. Xander needed to _know_. “Or—or maybe it used to be? I don’t know. But whatever that thing is, it’s not friendly. It nearly took my skin off with that hulking knife it carries!”

Inigo’s voice had grown to almost normal volumes by the time he finished speaking; he clamped his lips shut when he realized how loud he had gotten, eyes wide.

Xander didn’t seem to care about that, however. He took Inigo’s face with both his hands, eyes drilling holes into Inigo’s skull with the intensity of his gaze.

“What?” he barked. “But you’re unharmed?”

Now wasn’t the time, but Inigo’s heart fluttered at his concern. He gently wrapped his fingers around Xander’s wrist.

“I’m alright,” he said again. “But that thing is _dangerous_. Seriously. I’m so relieved you’ve been hiding this whole time. If you ran into it…”

Inigo didn’t even want to think about it.

Xander’s frown deepened. “If we found a weapon, then perhaps—”

“I don’t think so,” Inigo cut in hastily. He managed a thin smile and a wink to lighten his words. “Don’t take this the wrong way, big guy, but I don’t think this is one of those situations you fight your way out of. At least not without a plan. I saw a pallet of wood leaned against a wall back at the house, and I threw it down to try to block its path. That thing just _stomped_ through it like it was nothing.”

He didn’t want to imagine what a force like that could do to a person in its path. Inigo imagined the creature stomping down on a hand that hard. Or a head. The mental imagery was sickening.

He hoped Xander got the picture.

“I see.” Xander looked considering. “The generators, you said?”

“Yeah. Haven’t you seen them?” Inigo gestured around. “I’ve spotted a couple already. They’re broken, but I think I managed to get one working again. I think somebody else fixed another. There are electrical cables connected to the doors leading out of this place. I think if we can get enough power running, we can open the doors and get out of here.”

Or so he hoped. There was no way to check that theory until it was either proven or disproven, and by then it would likely be too late to try anything else.

Gods, Inigo hoped he was right.

“Okay.” Xander nodded. He was clearly still thinking. “If that’s the case, we should go together and find some more. They might just be our ticket out of here.”

Inigo’s heart swelled with relief. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”

They looked at each other for a moment without speaking. Inigo drank in the sight of Xander healthy and whole in the eerie moonlight, and he could see Xander doing the same for him.

Xander, who had miraculously gone unscathed while Inigo had been running for his life between farming equipment and dead crops.

He was just so _relieved_.

Inigo didn’t even think about moving. He surged up to meet Xander exactly as he had a thousand times before, only this time with more raw feeling. Xander met him with equal force. Inigo felt large hands sliding around his back, pulling him protectively against Xander’s chest as they kissed.

Unfortunately, kissing was rather ill-advised in life and death scenarios, and Inigo could hear his own voice screaming at the movie characters on screen not to be dumb. He reluctantly broke the kiss to find Xander still watching him with careful eyes.

“We’re going together, right?” Inigo asked.

Xander paused for the briefest of moments, then nodded. “Of course.”

Inigo pulled back.

“Why’d you hesitate?” he asked, unease filling his tone.

Xander shook his head. “If I tell you to go, you have to promise to run, even if it means splitting up.”

Inigo balked.

“No way,” he said seriously. “You haven’t seen that thing, but _I_ have. Being alone right now is just stupid.”

“Be that as it may,” Xander insisted, “you are the one who said not to fight. And while I can’t promise that, I _do_ know we have to be careful. And that might mean becoming two targets instead of one. That way at least one of us is guaranteed an escape. We can always come back for the other.”

The logic was sound, yet Inigo rejected it on instinct anyway.

“If you run, I’ll run. But if you think I’m going to take off when you’re backed into a corner somewhere, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Xander clearly didn’t like that answer. But if he thought Inigo was suddenly going to start listening to him now after two years of dating doing the exact opposite of that, he had another thing coming.

He never got the chance to argue, however. Just as Xander opened his mouth, probably to retort something stern, Inigo glanced over his shoulder. Without tearing his eyes away from the horrid sight behind them, he dug his fingers into Xander’s wrist.

Xander’s mouth closed. Inigo didn’t glance away to see his expression.

Somehow, without them noticing, the monster had circled back around. It stood only a few yards behind Xander’s turned back, with nothing between them to obscure either of them from sight.

And it was headed right for them.

“Time to go,” Inigo whispered dryly. The creature steadily picked up pace, getting closer. “Go, go, go, go!”

His voice had risen to a cry by the last word, and his frantic pulling at Xander’s arm was all his boyfriend needed to get a move on. They both scrambled to their feet. Inigo saw the exact moment Xander spotted the monster chasing them. It wasn’t a good feeling.

“Keep going!” Inigo said loudly. He trusted that Xander was right behind him.

The thought that Xander _wasn’t_ behind him didn’t occur to Inigo until it was already too late. The lack of footsteps behind him, the increasingly distant shuffling sounds—

Inigo slowed and looked over his shoulder. Nobody was there.

He scanned the horizon frantically, slowing even further to a jog. It took a panic-stricken moment before he spotted Xander in the distance—running the exact _opposite_ direction of Inigo.

“No!” Inigo shouted as he realized just how far Xander had gotten. How they were getting farther from each other with each step.

The monster heard Inigo’s cry and turned its clothed head to stare at him, pinning Inigo with a fresh wave of fear.

But though he was no pushover, Xander was clearly the easier target. The creature turned its attention back to him, easily keeping pace with its prey.

“Keep going!” Xander yelled back, arms pumping at his sides as he ran. “I’ll find you!”

Xander darted in and out of the trees, weaving between bales of hay and other structures to try and put some distance between himself and the creature. The monster followed in chase. With each step they took, the thickening fog made them increasingly more impossible to see.

Inigo’s heart pounded wildly in his chest. Xander couldn’t outrun that creature forever.

He quickly changed direction and ran toward Xander. But the closer he got to their last seen location, the more anxious he became. At some point he’d lost sight of Xander and the monster. He ran towards the trees he thought he'd seen Xander circle around, but the scenery all blended together. Every tree looked like the next, every black patch of grass identical to the other. The only guiding landmarks Inigo spotted were the house and the corn field, and he didn’t think Xander had taken the monster in that direction. Had he?

Inigo stopped running and spun in place. No matter which way he turned, he could _hear_ Xander and the creature’s heavy footsteps somewhere close by, but he couldn’t _see_ them.

“No, no, _no_ ,” Inigo whispered to himself. But it was too late now. He’d lost them.

Inigo sank down into the tall grass to hide himself, once more alone.

He waited, both hopeful and dreading that Xander would pass in front of him, the creature still at his heels. But the longer Inigo waited, the more distant the sounds of the chase became, until eventually Inigo couldn’t hear them at all. His heart sank.

 _Okay,_ Inigo thought frantically. He could—he _would_ do this.

Xander would be fine. He had to be. Inigo would do his best in the meantime.

He couldn't just run around, searching with no plan. So Inigo would find more of the generators instead. 

He’d already managed the first one. Someone—Hans, maybe—had managed another. That meant none of the generators were that difficult to manage then. Not if the first two had been fixed so quickly. Inigo knew there had to be more scattered about the area. So he’d find them all and fix them and then—

Then hopefully one of the doors would open. And he and Xander could get the hell out of there.

He’d find Xander too. It would take some time, maybe, but they’d already run into each other once. It wouldn't take too long. Or so Inigo told himself.

Even if Inigo couldn’t catch up to him now, there was no way Xander would be caught by—by that _thing_. No way.

In the meantime, there was no use just sitting there. He had hidden long enough, and look where it had gotten him. Xander had distracted a monster for him. Inigo needed to act. 

Their lives— _Xander’s_ life—depended on it.

Inigo glanced around. Corn, corn, corn, and that same dilapidated house in the center were all the eye could see. That, and the two separate beacons of light that signaled finished generators. He had no ideas where the others generators were at this point. So he had to work with what he knew.

Absolutely no part of Inigo wanted to go back to the house. He remembered the dead ends, the rotted walls, the creaking of the floorboards underfoot as the creature sought him out. He remembered running by a dark staircase that led down, down, down, deeper into the house. Into a cellar that stank something _awful_. Inigo had sprinted even faster just to get away from it.

The house was an absolute deathtrap.

But, he realized, it was a good a place as any to start looking for more generators. If nothing else, he could probably get a pretty good view of the area from the second floor.

Thus—limbs protesting, heart pounding, fear gnawing away at Inigo’s resolve—he began his trek to the house.

**Author's Note:**

> I realized midway through writing this that I had to cut it should here because a full-out DbD match would end up going for so long it would probably become boring to you guys, lol. But I hope you had fun reading anyway! DbD matches have a limit of about 4 people per match, so I had to really narrow the focus down here. But trust me when I say I also considered other versions of this fic! (Selena + Camilla + ?Maybe Beruka?, for example.) But Inigo and Xander were my first choice, and so I went with them.
> 
> I hope you guys like my horror fic as much as I like writing it! If you do, feel free to let me know!
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment below or hit me up on my [tumblr!](http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) I get a lot of FE14 meta and fic related asks there, so feel free to browse through my "asks" or "fe14" tag for some extra stuff from me and your fellow readers that you may not see over here. Or send in a question of your own if you had one! Thanks for reading!


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